Paul Sherwen
Paul Sherwen is generally seen as Phil Liggett’s counter-point, dutifully keeping the iconic duo’s race commentary on course, helping to convey to the English-speaking world the sport of Professional Cycling. Liggett, of course, has undeniably helped shape this great sport for Anglophones across the globe, having been the English voice of this sport since before I was born – and for that I’m eternally grateful to him; merely the sound of his voice warms the cockles of my cold, black heart. But as much as he is inextricably bound to the sport, the last time he got a fact right must have also been before I was born, if he ever has.
The balance Liggett’s special breed of factual rigor is Paul Sherwen. Not only does he have the insight of an ex-pro with which to season his commentary, he has several other highly technical analytical tools at his disposal, such as actually watching the race. Furthermore, Paul is able to counter Uncle Phil’s constitution under pressure – which resembles that of a knock-kneed Rhode Island Red in a washing machine on a delicates/knits cycle – with his Sprinter’s Cool. Whereas Phil can be heard squawking and clucking incomprehensibly with excitement as a race unfolds, Paul peppers the commentary with self-deprecating jokes about his own career and adds a Swahili proverb or two that might be helpful for the riders, were they only able to hear him.
In this current role of his, as the commentary equivalent of Autocorrect on Liggett’s iPhone, it is easy to forget that Paul was among the most respected riders of his day. Seen here stringing out a bunch (in complete Rule Compliance, I might add) reminds me of the various tales of tenacity that earned him the respect not only of his fellow riders, but of race organizers.
One such example is of the 1985 Tour de France when Sherwen, a domestique with no chance at the overall, crashed in the opening kilometers of a Pyrenean stage and was left to fend for himself while Bernard Hinault raced for the win at the front, making small children of grown men. Refusing to give up, Sherwen limped through the stage alone, accompanied only by a single Gendarme’s motorcycle. More than an hour after the stage winner and well outside the time limit, he finished the stage. The race jury, moved by his resolve to finish the stage, reinstated him and allowed him to continue on in the Tour. In a word, respect.
I think of all the people in the cycling world I most admire, it has to be Paul Sherwen.
@mcsqueak
Reverence: Velox rim tape. Just a thought.
@Jeff in PetroMetro
We used to have this guy named Bob (not pro) that would show up for one of our hammer fest training rides every week or so. Bob was a big as a house and no style at all (wore Champion knee length basketball socks and rode a high end steed from Wal-mart). First 40-50K he would beat us down (guys that had been and should have gone to Europe). Uphill, flats, headwind, didn’t matter. Then he’d die. We called him “Tube Sock”.
@Jeff in PetroMetro
Smooth valve stems fuckin’ rock! My Silca love’s the smooth.
@paolo
Reading “The Sweat of the Gods” right now; first 1/3 of it is all about how L’Auto was just the sponsor’s bitch to get in good with them and keep the fountain flowing. Its been this way for ever. Too bad. We’re considering getting advertising going on Velominati, but we’re reluctant because that is precisely the type of thing we want to avoid. It’s a tough walk.
@xyxax
A+1.
@scaler911
Does she know that’s what you call her?
@frank
Yes she does.
@frank
You have to do what you have to do to keep this thing going. While it’s a tough row to hoe, I’m sure that the ads would be appropriate to the site. Or porn and beer ad’s. Don’t drain the bank account.
@frank
Yeah i bet it is a tough walk. I’d be interested to know what it costs to run a site like this. Like scaler says i’m sure the ads would site appropriate.
I don’t mind the product placement if it keeps racing going in the US and on my TV. I wish we had the same coverage of ski racing.
Incidently..I’m always lurking I just don’t talk much. Keep up the good work Frank and congrats on the Volcano. I’ve been there a few times never ridden it. I guess next time I’ll have to give it a shot.
@scaler911
Rather taking money for product brands to lurk here, why not recognise the strength of the V-brand by selling the right to use it on products (of endorsable quality)? Plenty of good brands not as well-known as Velominati – Campagnolo, Cervelo, Look, etc – would benefit enormously from a tastefully executed association with the v-cog. Provided we stopped calling it a sea urchin.
@seemunkee
Seen Morgan Spurlock’s latest doco? He’s sold every single second of it to marketing & product placement. It’s called “(Some Brand Name) presents the Greatest Movie Ever Sold!”
@frank
@scaler911
Wait. I got shit for naming brands in the silly rapha FB picture thing and your talking about ad’s? FML.
@RedRanger
Shhh, you said “Rapha”!
Wait, now I did dammit!
@G’phant
Apologies
@G’phant
We tried that with the Rule #31 sack and Lezyne. The prez was all for it, but one of his minions decided it would cost too much to put a V cog on the other side of the sack…
But, there are some other irons in the fire…
@Oli
Futher to Jim and Oli’s posts,this pic was taken on stage 3 of the 78 tour. Sherwen was the only non-French rider on the Fiat-La France team directed by the wily, colorful, voluble and general hard man of the 50s Raphael Geminiani. (Jacques Anquetil’s old boss). The 78 tour was notable for thee major things: Raleigh won 10 of 22 stages – incredible dominance and a real take-no-prisoners attitude that makes HTC look like amateurs; Michel Pollentier got kicked off the tour at Alpe d’Huez after cheating the dope test. In what seems an almost laughable, Chaplinesque move by today’s standards, he concealed a rubber bulb of someone else’s urine under his armpit with a tube going across his back, down his crack and out under his dick. Needless to say he was busted. The rumor was that if he had been French and a stylish rider, he would have been penalized and allowed to stay in the race; as he was small, Belgian, ungainly on the bike and had a comb-over, Felix Levitan (the race director) didn’t want him on “his” podium in Paris. He packed his bags in shame. A young team-mate of Pollentier was Sean Kelly. Other riders on the Velda-Lano-Frandria team were Freddy Maertens, Joaquim Agostino, Marc De Meyer and Marcel Tinazzi.
Another striking feature of the 78 tour (and pardon the pun) was the riders’ strike at Agen on Stage 12a. Yup, 12a. There were to be two stages that day – 148km in the morning, 96 in the afternoon. Pissed off at this and the fact that it came after a really hard day in the mountains and a need to get up at 5am, the riders, in protest, dawdled on the stage and dismounted and walked across the line – led by the French champion, a certain M. Bernard Hinault. The people of Agen, expecting a fine finish to their stage, were equally pissed. Prize monies were given to local social service agencies.
Anyhoo, back to Mr Sherwen’s display of the V. Stage 3was 243.5kms from Saint Amand Les Eaux-St. Germain En Laye. The weather was wet and crappy with a head wind most of the way. At 185 kms, the big break of the day got away: Danguillaume and Ovion (Peugeot), Thaler and Knetemann (Raleigh), Bossis (Renault), Le Guilloux (Mercier), Bittinger (Flandria), Friou (Lejeune), Bruyere (C&A) and Sherwen (Fiat). Sherwen gave it his all on the front, but alas laid a little too muh V down on the road (it was his first tour) and he fell off the back near the end. The stage was won by Thaler and Bossis won the yellow jersey, after Danguillaume skidded on a wet pedestrian crossing near the finishing straight taking out Bittinger and Ovion.
Only 110 riders began the tour in 78. Coincidentally, 78 riders finished with Sherwen in 70th spot. Throughout the rest of his career as a rider, he was noted for his hard grafting and courage in finishing several stages despite injuries that would have seen many abandon. A real “Tour man.”
@Mikael Liddy
Heard about it but didn’t know if it had come out yet.
I can understand needing sponsors but naming the jerseys, and each little on screen stat gets more than a bit annoying.
@wiscot
AWESOME story!
Oli and Wiscot, thank you!
Two parts of one stage? Weird.
Hmm, ads on the hallowed site? This should be interesting…
Jeff – Funny you should mention pondering when the transformation into a cyclist happened. Was asked why I ride a bike this Sunday during a spin with pals. A guy I’d just met asked me this, so I too have been thinking about it of late. I haven’t been at it nearly as long as many of you, but I can’t conceive of my life without cycling. Who knows what the future holds, but I hope it includes plenty of pedaling and plenty of new bikes. No end-of-the-line Ti frameset stuff for me, at least not for awhile.
@Jim
Yup, two stages in one day. I don’t think it’s been tried in the Tour since. I know the Criterium international has done it/does do it, but in the tour no. I certainly wouldn’t like to be the one to wake M. Hinault up at 5am to get ready for two stages . . .
@scaler911
It’s an old French proverb. Basically, it means someone inexperienced needs someone older to show him the ropes. (Literally: A young hunter needs an old dog.) In other words, some of the younger riders could learn a thing or two from the ’87 Raleigh Banana.
@wiscot
It was also done in ’86. Alex Steida took the yellow in the morning stage and lost it that afternoon in the TTT. But he was the first North American in yellow, at least for a few hours.
@Jeff in PetroMetro
Jeff, my apologies, I should have been clear – two regular road stages in one day. A few hours in yellow still counts – lots of guys would sell their grannies for that honor.
@Velo Kitty
True that. That’s why it’s great to have a site like this.
@Oli
From hence forth I will never name names. When I get a new bike I will black out the brand. We can no longer use the 3 name brands on components, just the part name. Any reverence articles about mini tools should be taken down ASAP.
Awesome and timely post, Frank… Sherwen rocks… Over the winter (in UK, this is usually September to June), when I was locked in turbo trainer hell, I bought some old TdF videos to watch to see what @Oli and you lot were all on about with all this ‘panache’ and stuff. Lo and behold, if 1986 is not the first year Sherwen and Liggett were united. Bugger me, it’s worth watching, if only to hear Sherwen’s rough northern accent and see Liggett looking young, with hair and everything – boy, they’ve come a long way together. Cracking TdF back then, too with the whole Hinault / Lemond thing kicking off
@JIPM “But seriously-what about the day you decided you were a cyclist and everything else fell by the wayside? I’ve thought about that a lot lately.”
GREAT QUESTION, really great. My wife keeps asking, so how come you are so into this now? I personally think that I was always a cyclist, I just didn’t know it. Kind of like Michaelangelo used to say, BITD, sculpting is easy – Every piece of rock has a beautiful statue inside of it… all I have to do is chip away at the excess and help it come out (in Italian, obviously)
Now I’m no David, but I did a whole bunch of sports (swimming, rugby, rowing, sailing, cross country running etc.) for years, where I wasn’t that good at it, but found I had good stamina / high pain threshold so was quite competitive, but trashed my back, my knees, my face etc. as I was really too small, too heavy, yet too stubborn to give them up and then… voila, a mate from the US comes to the UK to watch the prologue of the 2007 TdF, drags me along – I’m hooked, I buy a bike, and there it is: Boom. Wool lifted from eyes, life changes… 4 years later, 20kg lighter, several £grand lighter, and my heart soars each time I get on my iron steed and set out. I don’t know how I even got out of bed before then… my life was just so empty.
September 9th, 2007. That was my day.
@roadslave
Beautifully said.
Nice one, roadslave! Pretty cool you can trace your birth as a Velominatus to a single day. And so recently, now you are all in.
Mine was a bit slower, a used road bike here, some used shorts with a chamois there (I know, but hey $2 at the thrift store was pretty cool to a guy riding in boxer briefs), an ebayed jersey with pockets…
Now I can’t imagine my life without cycling. I too played a ton of other sports growing up & even played through college. The only one I still play is a bit of soccer twice a week. What I love about cycling is that it allows me to be as competitive as I desire. I used to be extremely competitive, but now I just don’t have that same fire to push, shove, grind for it. But, on the bike I can push myself as hard as I want when solo, head to a group ride if I want to mix it up there, and now I’m starting my first CX season.
I was lost for a few years after college, need a sport to keep me going but hadn’t yet chipped away my Velominati-layers.
It feels good to have uncovered my bedrock!
@wiscot
Actually, they’ve done it pretty regularly; a road stage in the morning and a TTT in the afternoon…as recently as 1990, I think.
The 1978 bit was also kind of a last-straw. The riders had been involved in long transfers where the team busses were coming down from mountain-top finishes along with all the other spectator traffic, sitting there for hours in their team busses/cars as they crawled off the mountain. They’d get in to the hotel late at night, not having had dinner or their massages, and not get to sleep until 2am or later. Then it’s up at 5am for an early race start and pretty soon you find yourself in a rider protest.
What’s amazing is that Hinault was not yet the Patron at that stage; he just seemed to fall into that role naturally. The other riders were fidgety and nervous, while Hinault just stood there like a rock, nearly motionless.
@Jeff in PetroMetro, @wiscot
Oops.
@scaler911
Haven’t you heard? We’re all a bunch of twats. Check with some of the sage postsers over on The Rules.
@roadslave
Amazing, awesome. In some ways, I wish I could remember the day for me. I started cycling to help stay fit for my focus at the time, Nordic Skiing. I was quite good, too – planned my whole life around it – training for the Olympics and all that. There wasn’t a question in my mind that I would win a Gold Medal in the 50k. Since I was 8 years old, I had been training for that.
Then, one day – and I remember exactly where I was, walking up the hill to my parent’s house – I realized it was Fall and I would be hanging up my bike to start skiing again soon. And I felt sad about it. That was the day I realized I was a cyclist, not a skier. And bit by bit, all that focus on skiing just faded away.
Never went to the Olympics, never was nearly as good at cycling as I was at skiing, but I loved it so much more. That’s passion. It has nothing to do with how good you’re actually at something; it has to do with how much you love it. That’s the point that all the douchenozzles who read The Rules and then tell us to fuck off are missing.
Passion and competency are totally unrelated.
@frank… I hear ya, buddy. A bit of Lemond in you (old skool Lemond, I say quickly)? didn’t he take up cycling as a way of keeping fit for (girly downhill) skiing (not the hard x-country stuff).
I think passion is an over-used phrase, particularly in the corporate world “We are PASSIONATE about selling office goods” etc.)… My wife, who is way out of my league, works in the art world, and she giggles everytime we see something like that… In her world (aka, paintings of the “Passion of Christ” etc.) passion means suffering… it means wanting something so much that it comes at a cost or a sacrifice (think OCD and neatness)… it’s nice to see in your post above what I think is the correct usage… I think you have it fucken spot on:
“never was nearly as good at cycling as I was at skiing, but I loved it so much more… passion and competency are totally unrelated” AMerckx, brother
Doesn’t mean we can’t try to be like the pros and Look Fantastic, or talk shit about cycles all day… no matter what Adrian or Stephan say.
@frank
Passion and competency are totally unrelated.
I have a new motto. Marvellous. (Oli might suggest that the word is ‘competence’. But I feel more passionert about ‘competency’.)
@frank
Don’t bother me right now, I’m riding, and that’s all that matters. Oh shit, why am I even here, I should get back to just riding. Never liked hanging around here anyway. I heard the founder is a douche.
@frank
That’s a great photo.
@roadslave
A-fucking-Merckx
@frank
Dude, he’s French, he was born to stage some sort of strike or protest…(gotta love a nationalistic stereotype)
:)
Don’t I wish! I am stuck in the heart of San Anotnio trying to get all in-processed into the Army base there and riding my kk pro fliud trainer daily in my tiny hotel room (< 400 square feet) that I share with my wife and 5 kids and two cats. Man, I need to find a group ride around here ASAP to learn the safe roads in the heart of the 7th largest city in the US of A!!! Look forward to being back here more regularly once I get all settled in next week!
@Dr C
Yes, I “stole” that photo for my avatar b/c it embodies everything about the “sport” of cycling that runs through my veins. Just defines everything for me. Kind of like the whole, “If you have to ask, you’ll never understand” thing. If you see that photo of Paul Sherwin after P-R and do not understand, then cycling is not, at least yet, for you.
@roadslave
I love the stories of how folks get into riding/racing – my favorite was Mary Jane
Reoch, former 11 time National Champion, sadly no longer with us. She and her husband were on a motorcycle tour of Europe and in the Alps they were passed on a decent by a race peloton. It blew their minds and in Milan they ordered bikes and went home and began racing. She went on to fame and fortune while her husband (the one who was most excited) only became a local rider and MJ’s supporter.
My initiation was at the hands of my cousin who had been racing a couple of years. I had been city commuting 4+ years and came home, thought it might be fun to go for a ride with the racer. As we started out from his house he awkwardly reached down on his fixed winter bike (what the hell, I did not even understand what that was) to tighten his toe straps?? I had them but never knew you could or would tighten them – that ride changed my life and the next spring I started training with local racers… it was all down hill from there!
@Rob
Mine didn’t start off so sexy. I had a bike I liked to ride around once in awhile. I was a pretty decent long distance runner in HS and into college. I hurt my knee and of course PT was not to run, but to ride my bike more. It was fun, but I wasn’t sold. I got married (not to my VMH, I had to pitch the first one), and when things got bad, I knew I could be gone longer on the bike than out for a run. The time away, and then, realizing that this was a unique thing, is what hooked me. I could think (or not). See places in my town I otherwise wouldn’t. Keep fit. Then I decided to race. That’s what clinched it for me. Riding with the bunch, meeting new folk, and having some success (for the competitive side of me). But then I could ride alone too, and training for racing allowed me that opportunity.
And see, it still works. Here I am, still doing all that, and talking about it to folk that understand that there’s more to life than the Super Bowl.
After a couple of years as a cycle courier (think smoking drinking leery little prick) I was visiting my folks and found a used cannondale with Ultegra for five hundy, it was too big and the shifters were flogged, but it changed colour when you walked past it. Dark green to purple, if anyone knows what I’m on about. I knew it was a steal and all of a sudden I had a bike that was nice to ride and worth maintaining, rather than a beaten to shit MTB that I just needed to keep on the road. My work bikes got better: I ended up going through a fixie (wiped out by taxi) to ending up on a GT road bike with bullhorns and bar end shifters. With the Cannondale, I would go ride after work, had a great summer of riding twilight rides for 2 or so hours after riding all day and that was that.
I rowed at HS and Uni and always had a pretty suitable base, but I figured that was what I needed to do at the time and it was all good.
@roadslave
I started when I was 14. I had a school friend who was into bikes, and he sparked my interest.
I bought my first bike and recall just taking it apart every weekend because I loved the mechanics and beautiful simplicity of it. The first bike was a cheap Raleigh but with black frame and gold painted lines around the lugs.
In between all of the tinkering of course was the riding. I just loved riding. I soon realised that the Raleigh just wasn't good enough, so I bought a VeloSport with Shimano 600 Groupset. It was better. But fool me bought a 56 when I really needed a 50. More riding ensued.
I then discovered that there was a local touring club that held 15 k time trial every Tuesday night not 5k
from my house. I was soon hooked by the endorphin rush and the idea that it felt GOOD to make yourself suffer.
Soon after, a fine gentleman by the name of Cooper came along with the idea that he should start up a cycle racing team that would include anyone in the region interested. Soon we had kit, then soon after that I did my first race as a junior.
The Colnago soon followed (54(idiot, but getting closer), then the custom built Marinoni (52, duh(all bikes had Super Record by this stage).
By now I moved to the big smoke for University and joined another team, where I finally ended up on my beautiful 50cm PDM Concorde.
Raced on that for a few years till I got to Senior II and had my ass handed to me in a stage race by the guys in the 7-11 domestic team amongst others.
Got disillusioned and gave it up for 10 years. Convinced myself I was still fit ( self delusion).
Started back on a mountain bike 10 years ago, and have rediscovered my love for suffering.
@mouse, @minion, @rob, @frank, @michael liddy – thanks for posts, and for comments. Great to read, and all inspiring. Big chapeau to @JIPM for raising the most excellent question in the first place… one of those moments that makes you stand back and look at the bigger picture. On an awesomeness scale of 1 to 10, I think Jeff is a 32 right about now. Thanks
I had to wade in a ways to find a post that said: well done, frank.
Sad.
Nicely written, frank!
Oh! and…Rapha…don’t dis it until you’ve worn it.
Now, boyz, go to bed and stare at the pics of Pantani which you have pasted to your ceilings.
Wait, San Antonio is the 7th largest conurbation in the U.S.?! Hmm, I know TX has a bunch of big arse cities, but didn’t realize San An was that high up.
Lots of great stories here. I never really made a conscious decision to become a Velominatus; it was a slow accretion of Reverence & Awe & Respect in my bones. A mtn. bike ridden to work, then a used Cannondale, and then it just kept going. Another sport dominated my life from age 8-22. Post-college was a bit lost for a few years. Now I cannot delineate myself & cycling. It’s great & I love it. I’m intimately connected to nature, the weather, the seasons, sunrise and sunset, the patterns of daily life. Cycling is always there for me, provide some structure, some release, some exercise, and a metric tonne of awesomeness.
minion – My first true road bike was a mango colored Cannondale with 105. Too big for me, rode the heck out of it from 2003-2009. Aboard that bike I was transformed.
The Badger’s pose in that photo is stunning. Like a damn rock. “I am not moving, I am not pleased.” Yeah, waking him up at 5am is NOT a job I’d want to have on my list of duties.